Johnson tells House GOP he has no challengers for leadership race

Speaker Mike Johnson told House Republicans behind closed doors that he doesn’t have any challengers to his candidacy right now, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The private comments come after two people familiar with the private discussions told POLITICO on Tuesday night that members of the House Freedom Caucus would not throw in a candidate but instead force an internal vote on the speakership race during a closed-door election set for Wednesday afternoon.

The decision by Johnson’s right flank came after the bloc’s members deliberated for days about whether or not to throw in an alternative candidate. As of Tuesday afternoon, they still appeared to be leaning toward throwing someone into the race.

Instead, after a closed-door Freedom Caucus meeting on Tuesday night, the group’s plan is now to force an internal vote without formally mounting a challenger. That means they would prevent leadership from allowing Johnson to be nominated for speaker by a simple voice vote — one that would have allowed him to say he was nominated unanimously. Instead, members would go ahead with the secret-ballot process, giving them the option to oppose Johnson’s speaker nomination without revealing who they are.

Despite the move, Johnson is expected to easily get the simple majority needed to become his party’s speaker nominee.

Part of the frustration from Johnson’s right is tied to a debate over the conference’s internal rules, which House Republicans are set to vote on Thursday. Rules proposals circulated on Tuesday included several amendments to the House GOP’s rules that would punish members who broke with the conference on certain procedural and leadership votes.

Johnson told POLITICO on Tuesday that he does not support rules to punish members. But some conservatives want him to go further and actively tell his members to vote against the rules proposals during Wednesday’s closed-door conference meetings.